“So I wasn’t going to call you, ever. I’d decided that. But it didn’t stop me from thinking of you. I thought of you so much… I don’t think I’ve gone a week in my entire life without you coming to mind. I’m serious, E. I just thought of you all the time. I couldn’t help it. And after awhile I didn’t really want to help it. Although I admit there were times I was delusional about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well first, the whole thing was crazy. To be thinking of you at all after so many years was crazy. Because I figured you were married for sure. No way would you be single. I bet she’s married, I thought. She probably married some Italian guy, who is good looking and she’s got four kids. I bet she’s happy too and look at me. Look where I am.”

“Where were you?” I asked.

“Oh, I’d be in some bum-fuck Godforsaken place. I’d be sleepin’ in the jungle or on some kind of rock.”

I laughed.

“That’s all I ever did, P. Every mission I ever went on was horrible. The places, I mean. The missions weren’t horrible. I liked a lot of them. I liked most of them actually. I liked my job, period. I could even say I loved my job and I really don’t mind sleeping on a rock so don’t worry about that. I’m just telling you because you asked. Where was I? I’d be in in bum-fuck wherever and I’d think of you because it always made me feel good. If it made me feel bad, I am sure I’d have stopped. But it didn’t. I felt good when I thought of you and it wasn’t hurting you any, so I just kept doing it.”

“I see.”

“And it would keep me company in a way. I could always relate to you. I couldn’t always relate to the people around me and a lot of the time, there was no on around me anyway. See, when you start out in Special Forces you go out in a group. But after awhile, as you advance, the groups you go out in get smaller and smaller and eventually you go out by yourself.”

“I see.”

“Yeah. So that’s what I was doing. I was by myself a lot of the time… most of the time as I got more advanced and some of this stuff like I said, it’s ridiculously dangerous. And you just know you may die when you’re doing it.” He laughed.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. See you have to know you can die at any minute, pretty much. Because you’re out there and you know that something is going to happen. Either you’re going to get them or they’re going to get you.”

“I see.”

“And if they get you, you’re dead. And then they’ll send someone else to try to get them. But one way or the other, you know that once you’re out there someone isn’t going to be going home. And you sure as hell don’t know it’s not going to be you that will wind up getting killed.”

“Oh. I see. I’m not sure how you could stand that.”

“Well that’s what I’m going to tell you.”

“How you can stand it? Okay, tell me.”

“Well I don’t know about other people. I’m not sure what guys like me, guys who do what I do…. I have no idea what they think about when they know they might be dying pretty soon, but myself?”

“Yeah?”

“Well if I was going to die, I didn’t want my last thoughts to be something bad. You know. I didn’t want to die with a bad thought in my head. Or die with a stupid thought like I’ve got these bills I’ve got to pay. I didn’t want to be thinking, when I get home, I guess I’ll write a check and pay this… I’m pay my car payment…”

I laughed.

“Exactly. I would not want to die thinking about some stupid bill I have to pay. I want to die with best feelings and thoughts possible. I don’t want to die remembering some nasty time I had. I want to die thinking about the best times in my life and all of those I had with you. So you can see what I was doing, right P?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Because I don’t want to be crazy. A little crazy is fine, but not crazy, crazy.”

“I get it. You were using my energy… using your good memories, so you could feel good in case you died in that moment.”

“Right. And it worked, I can tell you that. It never failed me, not once in my whole life. It maybe worked a little too good at times because like I said, there were times I think I was pretty much… well I was definitely delusional.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, I would just imagine things. See, P, I always hoped I would see you again. I hoped somehow or some way, I would get to see you. Even if I couldn’t talk to you, I still would have liked to see you. Run into you somewhere or something. And I had no idea how this was supposed to happen. Because like I said, I figured you were married and I also figured you still lived in the desert. I never thought you’d ever leave the desert and I’m in bum-fuck, so how is this meeting supposed to happen?”

“It’s not. Especially if you don’t call. How the hell am I going to find you? 1-800-jungle? 1-800-bum-fuck, get me the soldier on the phone?”

“Right. And I should know this of course. There is no way you are going to find me but sometimes I would think about seeing you so hard, I thought it was going to happen. I would just get my imagination going so strong… things would be so vivid, I thought they must be real. I thought what I was imagining was actually going to happen,” he said, sounding embarrassed.

“Oh.”

“See? That was delusional. You’re living in the desert with your husband and your kids. You’re happy. You’re not coming to bum-fuck, looking for me. But I still would think at times I was going to run into you.”

“How?”

“Oh, a few times… this happened more than once, P. See I’d go out and I’d come back. So I’d be coming in from somewhere… middle of nowhere at the end of something I was doing and I’d be all beaten up. You can’t imagine how beaten up. I mean, I’d be beaten! Emotionally, physically, psychically… well, I’d just be so tired. And dirty. I’d be exactly the way you are after one of these missions. You get beaten up doing this, believe. Even if you don’t get killed, you still get your ass kicked somehow, every single time. It’s just not easy doing this, but anyway after I was done after I finished whatever I was doing, I’d head towards the nearest civilization, if you could call it that. In some places, civilization would be stretching it, but anyway I’d get to some kind of town or village or some kind of place on my way to getting back and first thing I’d do is go looking for a bar.”

“A bar?”

“Yeah. And I’d be thinking that’s done. So now I’m going to go have a beer and see Elsa P.”

I gasped, then laughed. “What?”

“Because you were a bartender when I knew you. And I’d think… I’d actually think to myself, I am going to walk in this bar, and Elsa P is going to be there. She’s going to be standing there, behind the bar…”

I was holding my breath.

“Yep. She’s going to be standing there and she’s going to see me, and I know exactly what she’s going to do too.”

“What? What am I going to do?”

“Well the first thing I thought you’d do is pour me a beer! You’d get me a beer, wouldn’t you?”

I laughed. “Yeah, I guess I would,”

“And then you’d ask me how I was doing,” he said. “Even though you’d be able to see that I’m doing like shit!”

I laughed.

“I’m all beat up. I’m bruised. I’m bloody. You wouldn’t pay that any mind, would you? I know you. You’d just pour me a beer and ask me how the hell I’d been.”

I roared. “Yeah, I think you’re right. And tell you that you’re filthy,” I said.

“Yeah, that too. And I smell. You’d probably tell me I was stinkin’ up your bar.”

We both laughed.

“But no. That never happened and believe me it was like a slap in the face. Reality, I mean. Reality would hit me and it would hit me hard too! Because I’d walk in the place… this is the third world, E. I’m telling you it is the third world and there would be some big ugly man tending bar and I’d think, oh noooooo. She’s not here! Where the hell is Elsa P?”

“Ugh.”

“Yeah. It was fucked. Here I was thinking I was going to see you…”

“You poor bastard.”

“Yeah, but I’d go up to the bar, anyway. What else am I going to do? Believe me there is nothing else to do in these places, so I’d get my beer. I’d get my sad and sorry beer from the fat ugly man who looked nothing like Elsa P and I’d take it and go sit at a table.”

I laughed. “To pine?”

“Yeah, to pine. Of course, to pine. What the hell else am I going to do?”

“Oh God. You should have called me.”

“But P?” He chuckled. “You haven’t heard the worst of it.”

“What’s the worst of it?”

“Well I’m sitting there, right. And I’m tired. I mean, I am exhausted. I am bone tired. I’m by myself. No Elsa P tending bar. No one asking how I’m doin’. No one telling me I’m a dumb ass. No one telling me to go take a bath in lysol, and then guess what happens?”

“What happens?”

“What happens is someone gets up from the bar… walks over to the jukebox and I already know what’s going to happen, know why?”

“Why?”

“Because it happened to me so many times. This happened to me time and time again, all over the world. The third world this is. Where the new music is twenty years old?”

“Uh huh?”

“So someone plays the jukebox and guess what comes out? Guess what plays?”

“What?”

“One of your songs, P. That’s what. What else? I swear to you, this happened to me so many times, it was ridiculous. I’d be somewhere and as soon as I saw someone get up and head towards the jukebox… which doesn’t play all that much. No one has any money, see. So it’s not like they have money to be throwing in a jukebox, but anyway this is what would happen and 9 times out of 10… or 8 times out of 10, guess which song?”

“Band of Gold.”

“Yep.” He snorted. “Freda Payne. Freda Payne and her band of fucking gold, playing in my ear, yet again.”

I laughed.

“Yeah, it’s funny. I hate that song. At the same time it’s one of my favorites. It’s gotta be one of the best songs ever written. Band of Gold is the best song in the world and Freda Payne, the best singer.”

He started singing it and I laughed.

“How the hell that song ever got stuck in my head, or why I associated it with you the way I did, I will never know. Because what happens in that song, never even happened to us. Well sort of. But anyway here would come your song, and you know what I’d think?”

“What?”

“Maybe Elsa P is here after all.”

The soldier is a Pisces rising with Moon conjunct Neptune in Scorpio in the 8th, sextile Saturn.

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